Biographical Sketch
The marriage of actor George C. Howard to Caroline Emily Fox in 1844 linked the
theatrical careers of not only Howard and Fox, but also those of two of Caroline's
brothers and two of the Howard children (Cordelia and Walter), as well as cousins
George L. and Frank E. Aiken.
George C. Howard (1815-1887) was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He appeared in amateur
theatricals in Boston in 1837, then took engagements in Philadelphia and Baltimore.
In 1842 he joined the company at the Tremont Theatre in Boston where he met, or was
reacquainted with, thirteen-year-old Caroline Emily Fox (1829-1908). Caroline,
already an experienced actress, had appeared as a child as one of the Little Foxes with her brothers George L., James A.,
Henry N., and Charles K. Fox. She married Howard in October 1844.
In early 1846, Howard took over the management of the Fox troupe and began billing
them as Howard and Foxes. The troupe toured
through New England, securing engagements in previously theater-hostile towns
because of the air of respectability lent by their status as a family. As the Foxes
grew up they left the troupe as they developed careers of their own. James A. Fox
quit the stage in 1850, much to the advantage of George L. Fox, who had been
overshadowed by James. Little Henry had died in 1844. In the fall of 1850 George L.
Fox was hired at the National Theatre (N.Y.), though he continued to work with
George C. Howard throughout the 1850s.
In 1852 Howard commissioned Caroline's cousin George L. Aiken to write an acting
version of Harriet Beecher Stowe's
Uncle Tom's Cabin,
probably as a vehicle for his four-year-old daughter Cordelia. Aiken's dramatization
was produced at the Troy (N.Y.) Museum in September 1852 with Howard as St. Clare,
Caroline as Topsy, Cordelia as Eva, and the playwright as George Harris. Though the
script ran at three hours fifteen minutes, it only took the story up through little
Eva's death, and in November Aiken prepared a sequel that ended properly with
Stowe's denouement. The two scripts were combined later that month into a drama of
six acts which became the standard acting version of Uncle
Tom's Cabin. When Alexander H. Purdy agreed to put on the play the
following July at his National Theatre in New York, where George L. Fox was
employed, it became a sensation, running at that theater until April 1854. The play
was performed continuously in the United States for eighty years, a remarkable run
by any standard. The Howards appeared in Uncle Tom's
Cabin until 1857.
Howard undertook the management of the Troy Adelphi Theatre in 1857, but the season
failed and George, Caroline, and Cordelia were soon back on the road. In 1863 Howard
stepped in as acting manager of Fox's Bowery Theatre, filling in for his
brother-in-law while Fox served in the Civil War. He stayed at the Bowery until
Fox's managerial role terminated in 1867, but even the presence of a relative as
business manager could not prevent other employees from gambling away the receipts.
Howard appeared on the stage intermittently until he died in 1887.
Caroline Emily Fox Howard continued to play Topsy until
her husband died in 1887. She lived in Cambridge until her death in 1908.
After starring in
Uncle Tom's Cabin, Katy, or the Hot Corn Girl, and The Death of Little Eva, a shortened version of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Cordelia Howard
(1848-1941) retired from the stage in 1861 at thirteen years of age. She completed
her education in Cambridge, Massachusetts and married Edmund Jesse Macdonald in
1871.
After
Uncle Tom's Cabin, George L.
Fox (1825-1877) continued appearing at the National where he stayed until
he decided to become a manager in 1858. That year he leased the Bowery Theatre, then
the New Bowery, with partner James W. Lingard, but in 1862 he split with Lingard and
opened his own George L. Fox's Olympic. Less than a month later he went back to the
old Bowery as lessee where he stayed until 1867, appearing in a variety of roles. In
1868 at Mrs. John Wood's Olympic Theatre he was first seen in a pantomime called
Humpty Dumpty. This quickly became his most
popular and lasting role. He scored another success in 1870 with his travesty of
Hamlet at Wood's Olympic. Four years later, he
tried management again, this time lasting six weeks as head of Fox's Broadway
Theatre. In 1875 he began showing signs of dementia. During a performance of Humpty Dumpty in November 1875 he was removed from the
stage by George C. Howard and placed in an insane asylum. He died in 1877.
Charles K. Fox (1833-1875) acted with the Little Foxes and Howard
and Foxes, then appeared in
Uncle Tom's
Cabin. Later he became assistant manager to his father. In the 1860s he
played Pantaloon to his brother George's Clown. He died in 1875 of typhoid fever.
Frank E. Aiken (1836-1910) was born in Boston. He began
his dramatic career acting under the management of his uncle George H. Wyatt and
went on to become a leading man before going into theater management in
Philadelphia. He opened the Aiken Theatre in 1873 and ran it for fifteen years.
Walter S. Howard (1868-1945), son of George C. Howard and
Caroline Emily Fox, was an actor and stage manager with the Joseph Jefferson, Thomas
Jefferson, Augustin Daly, and Ada Rehan Companies before his retirement in 1912.
Provenance
George P. Howard, grandson of George C. Howard, sold the George C. Howard and Family
Collection to the Harry Ransom Center in 1963. A small portion
of the sheet music and playbills in the collection are photostats of originals which
are held in other theater libraries. These photostats were collected by George P.
Howard during the course of his research on the performance history of
Uncle Tom's Cabin. Researchers will occasionally find
typed notes and enclosure sheets in the collection that were inserted by George P.
Howard.
Scope and Contents
The George C. Howard and Family Collection was gathered together by Howard's
grandson, George P. Howard, and brings together original materials passed down
within the family, as well as George P. Howard's notes and research materials.
Prompt books and playbills comprise the bulk of the collection, with programs,
posters, original manuscripts, daguerreotypes, and assorted materials making up the
balance. The collection is organized into three series with materials arranged
chronologically or alphabetically by title or author where possible: I.
Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852-1935, II. Acting Companies,
1833-1928, and III. Individuals, 1837-1963.
The
Uncle Tom's Cabin series is split into two
subseries: A. Scripts, 1852-1870s?, and B. Playbills, Prints, and Clippings,
1852-1935. The George L. Aiken and H. J. Conway versions of Uncle Tom's Cabin are included in the Scripts subseries, the Aiken
version represented by several prompt books used by the Howards between 1852 and
probably as late as the 1870s. Please note that access to the 1852 prompt book is
restricted due to its fragile condition; a digital copy is available for use. The
Conway version was produced at least twice at the Boston Museum, in 1852 and 1876.
Aiken also wrote a dramatization of Stowe's The Key to Uncle
Tom's Cabin which was produced in December 1853; the holograph
manuscript is located here. Many of the scripts contain performance annotations.
Subseries B contains assorted materials relating to Uncle
Tom's Cabin that were collected by the Howards, including playbills for
rival stage versions of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Conway
and C. W. Taylor.
The Acting Companies series is composed of three subseries: A. Fox Company, 1833-1846,
B. Howard-Fox Company, 1846-1928, and C. Related Material, 1840s. Materials are
arranged chronologically within each subseries. The Fox Company subseries contains
playbills, posters, and daguerreotypes which document the activities of George C.
Howard and the Fox children while the latter were still managed by their parents.
(Though Caroline and George were married in October 1844, playbills from 1845 and
early 1846 with both Howard and the Foxes on the same bill are included here.
Starting around April 1846, the Howard-Fox appearances were billed as being under the direction of Mr. G. Howard; these and
later playbills are located in the Howard-Fox Company subseries.) The Howard-Fox
materials tell of the many
Uncle Tom's Cabin
performances as well as other productions in which Cordelia Howard acted. Most of
the later items refer to George, Caroline, or Cordelia Howard, the other Foxes
having moved on to careers of their own. The last subseries holds the covers of an
account book in which Emily C. (Wyatt) Fox kept Little
Foxes and Howard and Foxes playbills
for performances dating through 1851.
The Individuals series pulls together materials concerning four actors who either
were not members of the Fox or Howard-Fox companies, or are represented here by
materials from their solo careers: A. George C.
Howard, 1837-42, B. George L. Fox, 1861-1903, C. Frank E. Aiken, 1880-1910, and D.
Walter S. Howard, 1879-1963. The George C. Howard subseries comprises a property
letter, probably kept as a souvenir, and a playbill which predate his association
with the Foxes. The George L. Fox subseries contains Professional and Personal
subseries which include an account book from Fox's first attempt at theater
management and a
Humpty Dumpty script written for him
but never performed due to illness, as well as programs featuring Fox's second wife,
Mattie Temple Fox, and their daughter Georgia L. Fox. The Frank E. Aiken subseries
contains four folders of programs and clippings, as well as memorabilia such as a
letter certifying his copyright for the five-act comedy Under
the Arch. The Walter S. Howard subseries is divided into three
subseries: Professional, 1889-1935, Personal, 1879-1963, and Creative Works, 1928,
undated. Howard's professional career with the Joseph Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson,
and Ada Rehan Companies is well documented with programs, playbills, scripts kept as
souvenirs, and assorted other materials. The Personal items relate to his wife,
Minnie Parker Howard, her father, and Howard's son George P. Howard, whose research
notes about the Howard-Fox family history are placed here. The Creative Works
subseries contains a short autobiographical account of Howard's days with Joseph
Jefferson and two longer narratives about the performance history of Uncle Tom's Cabin, one fiction, the other nonfiction.